Turn-taking in Japanese television interviews

Abstract

Despite interviewers having a wide range of strategies to elicit talk, English language interviewers overwhelmingly use syntactic questions. In contrast, most turns in Japanese semi-formal television interviews end in non-interrogative forms, and other methods are used to achieve smooth turn yielding. This study looks at the interviewers’ turns and examines how interviewees recognize turn-yielding. It argues that interviewers prefer using interviewing strategies other than canonical question forms to avoid any possible FTA (face threatening act).